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How not voting for Biden or Trump is a harsh reality in the Black community

Voter registration event
Photo by Megan Jelinger / AFP

"If you don't vote for me you're not Black."

Those words were actually said on live broadcasting, by a non-Black person to a Black person. Welcome to 2020, where despite our self driving cars, watches detecting heart attacks before they happen, and shoes that adapt to your feet in real time and tie themselves, we have regressed socially and have been faced with an epidemic of disrespect.

As one of the more tumultuous, revealing, and eye opening years recorded comes to a close, the ambiguous lines of racism and respect have been intertwined with the American political machine now more than ever."If you don't vote for me your not black" sounds like the title of an old Dave Chappelle's stand up comedy skit.

In actuality, it's what democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said to popular multimedia personality Charlamagne. Why he felt the need to align political ideologies with racial connotations escapes me. This is one of the themes of 2020, accepting slaps in the face in the hopes of better days to come.

You have to look at the bigger picture.

That's how I look at the 2020 election, a slap in the face. But you have to look at the bigger picture. The 45th president of the United States divided the country. On one side, you have his loyal supporters, essentially blind to his disrespectful and bigoted behavior they would never indulge in. On the other, you have a unified platform coming to the conclusion enough is enough and his antics must be stopped.

That is all they are unified on however.

The debate on who should've been his opponent in this election will forever be discussed. But we have Joe Biden, and if you're Black in America, you better vote for him, because that's what the other Blacks are doing, right? In the eyes of many Black Americans, the action of not voting for either candidate in a election is a harsh reality.

Being referred to as "super predators,""thugs," or "monsters" might make one believe the candidate might not have their best interests at heart. With that being said, the 45th president has presided over the US during one of it's best economically. So for some in this country, the person putting money in their pocket for the past several years has been elected the 45th president.

So logically speaking, I could understand the view point of wanting that person to lead us out of one of the worst recessions of our country's history. But it's about the bigger picture. Come election day, I hope everyone has the same attitude as me. Yes, we're diving into an unknown and scary time. Change is inevitable and progress comes in all different shapes and forms.

Am I endorsing Biden to be the savior of the US and the western free world.

No.

I, however, will not support a person who has backtracked on his words countless times, humiliated us on a global scale, incompetencies directly causing hundreds of thousands of deaths in a botch of a response to a global health crisis, and lastly, overseen and fueled one of the most racially charged presidential campaigns whose residue is the bedrock of the fragile racial climate you see in America today. I'm sorry Joe, I'm not voting for you because I'm Black. I am voting for you because I believe in freedom, love, peace, and equality.

I'm taking my country back the only way I know how.

Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases

Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard

Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.

The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.

Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.

In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.

It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.

Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?

With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.

Using tech to level the playing field

There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.

A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.

With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.

When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.

By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.

Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.

One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.

Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.

But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.